I don't disagree about your evaluation of the "undecideds", but I do dispute your view of the debates in general. They rarely are the deciding factor in a presidential election, but they have often played a significant role in how the public views the candidates, and frequently lead to shifts in polling. These polling shifts, in turn, effect media coverage and fund raising. So the debates are not nothing, and are most often the single most impactful "set pieces" in the fall presidential campaigns. Other events or developments may have more impact, but they will be unscheduled and spontaneous, either news events, or gaffes by one campaign or the other. This happens to be a very close race, and a shift of even 2 or 3 percent would be very significant - if Hillary gets a +2 point bump, she will be comfortably ahead in the electoral college; if Trump gets a +2 point bump, he will be ahead in the projected popular vote.
Obviously debates do not move people who are already part of either base, but they do move people who do not already have strong affiliations, or who have not been paying attention. One of the characteristics of this year's race is the unusually high fraction of the electorate who are not part of either base - who say they are voting for a third party candidate, or are undecided, or say they have voted in 2 or 3 of the last 4 election cycles, but are not planning on voting this time around. That makes this cycle more volatile than most, and much more likely to be influenced by the big set-piece events. Hillary got a much larger bump from the DNC than has been the case in recent years, which Trump steadily gained on in the 7 weeks since. Did this debate help significantly more of that large, juicy unaligned segment of the electorate (almost 20%) feel comfortable with one side or the other? That is the big question, and it likely will make a big difference in how the campaign turns out. What the pundits think, and what the insta-polls say, is pretty meaningless; but what the average of the post-debate polls say is very meaningful, and we should know that starting Thursday (but those will only be smaller sample tracking polls) and then Sunday. On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote: > As the old song goes, people hear what they want to hear and disregard the > rest. We've had multiple years of these vomit inducing presidential > campaigns. Anybody still undecided after all the media hype and > hoopla ought to never be allowed to vote for anything... not even > dogcatcher. Trump appealed to his base; Clinton appealed to hers. Nobody > won anybody over. Let's just vote already and put this nightmare behind > us. > > > On Tuesday, September 27, 2016, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 8:05 AM, Bob Jersey <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> I had a burgeoning sore throat. Like many in the fourth estate, I saw no >>>> clear winner. B >>>> >>> >> Wait - what? I am working on a little project, and would seriously be >> interested in seeing some of the sources you are reading that led you to >> conclude that many journalists saw the debate as essentially a tie (I am >> not counting Breitbart and Hannity here, both of which by this point have >> to be considered as part of the Trump campaign). Everything I read last >> night and this morning suggest that Clinton was the very clear winner. That >> includes the Fox News web page, which has as their first story that the >> media consensus was that Hillary won (to set up a rather suspect claim that >> that "real" voters thought Trump won, based on a few online insta polls, >> and ignoring the polls that found the opposite) - see: >> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09/27/online-polls- >> declare-trump-debate-winner-despite-media-consensus-for-clinton.html >> >> A WaPo article (https://www.washingtonpost.co >> m/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/09/27/daily-202-why- >> even-republicans-think-clinton-won-the-first-debate/5 >> 7e9b033e9b69b3019a1e037/) concluded that "even Republicans think Clinton >> won the first debate". Some of the most strident criticism I read last >> night was from conservative - even hard and alt right conservatives, >> bashing Trump for doing so poorly. And the Trump spinners themselves, as >> noted in the article above, were clearly depressed and frustrated when they >> came out to try to make the best of it. The the betting markets moved 5 - 6 >> points in Hillary's direction in the four hours after the debate last >> night, and 7 points total in the last 24 hours ( >> https://electionbettingodds.com/). >> >> Now, to be clear, I am focused here on how the news media and political >> class perceived the debate, not the electorate. It is possible that, >> especially this year, a perceived "win" by the media and political classes >> has little or no effect on voters. Trump supporters in particular are >> almost impossible to predict, as they seem to like the very things that >> mainstream observers detest, while Hillary seems to irritate a large >> fraction of even those people who agree with her (though I thought she was >> more "likable" last night than I have ever seen her, going back to the late >> 1980s). The insta polls (some very positive for Hillary, some for Trump) >> are meaningless as accurate samples of the population of voters - though >> Nate Silver wrote this morning that the much attacked CNN insta poll has >> been reliably predictive of shifts in post debate polling numbers for many >> years now. We will not have real polling data on the effect of the debate >> until Thursday at the earliest, and it will be until Sunday before we get >> most of the better polls in. Given the clear consensus that Hillary did >> better in the debate, she will be expected to show at least a 2 point bump >> in the polls (she was 1.6 ahead in the 538 model just before the debate >> started). The nightmare scenario for the Clinton campaign is that the polls >> do not change significantly (or even worse, that Trump continues his gain >> on Hillary), despite his debate disaster; this would suggest some kind of >> monster movie situation in which there is nothing a conventional (perhaps >> too conventional) candidate like Hillary can do to stop him. >> >> -- >> -- >> TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "TV or Not TV" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected] >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > > -- > Kevin M. (RPCV) > > -- > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
